Lynn Bruno and Chris Johnson, who met on Valentine's Day 2009, wed at the Capital Club in San Jose on December 28th. Various photographs from the wedding of Lynn Bruno and Christian Johnson, December 28, 2012 at the Capital Club of Silicon Valley in San Jose, California. Please credit all uses "Thor Swift Photography"

Photo: Thor Swift, Thorswift.com

Lynn Bruno and Chris Johnson, who met on Valentine's Day 2009, wed...

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Chris Johnson and Lynn Bruno, who had their first dinner-date on Valentine's Day 2009, were married at the Silicon Valley Capital Club in San Jose in December.

Photo: Thor Swift, Thor Swift Photography

Chris Johnson and Lynn Bruno, who had their first dinner-date on...

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The bride and groom wanted a wedding where kids would be welcome.

Photo: Thor Swift, Thorswift.com

The bride and groom wanted a wedding where kids would be welcome.

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Chris takes a spin with his mother.

Photo: Thor Swift, Thorswift.com

Chris takes a spin with his mother.

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Lynn Bruno and Chris Johnson, who met on Valentine's Day 2009, wed at the Capital Club in San Jose on December 28th.

Lynn Bruno spent weeks trying to schedule a get-together with Chris Johnson before finding a night they were both free.

Each had been in a long-term relationship and were looking to start afresh, without pressure. But the only date that worked for that first meeting, back in 2009, was Feb. 14.

"Oh no, come on," she recalled thinking at the time. "Valentine's Day - like that's not going to freak him out."

Walking into Palo Alto's Café Pro Bono restaurant for dinner, the marketing consultant from San Mateo did not anticipate a match made in heaven with the engineer from Santa Clara whom she had met on Match.com.

But after dinner, as they walked to their cars, Lynn ran back to grab the rose he'd given her, which she had forgotten on the table. The act, which might have been insignificant to some, made an impression on Chris.

He had been on many dates with women who'd wanted to get married to maintain "a certain lifestyle," as he put it. With Lynn, "Here was a woman who cared more about a little rose - the simple things - than any of that."

It was the moment he began to think she just might be the one.

Both had children from previous marriages who kept them busy at night and on weekends. After their initial dinner date, the pair took to meeting for weekday lunches at the restaurant at Ikea in East Palo Alto, equidistant from their jobs. He ordered Swedish meatballs; she ate Greek salad. They always parked "in section J," he said, "for Johnson."

A few months later, after losing her job in the recession, Lynn found it necessary to sell her house. It needed repairs, but with limited time for work and dating, she wasn't sure her new beau would want to get involved. To her surprise, he viewed it as a way to spend quality time together.

"He sanded the floors. He patched the pool. He repainted the whole house," Lynn said. "We'd only been going out six months. I didn't know how I'd ever repay him."

Life threw the budding romance a wrench, and she got her chance.

At year's end, Chris was diagnosed with colon cancer. Lynn ferried him to appointments at Stanford Hospital, to acupuncture treatments and to holistic doctors. She urged him to give up coffee and made him green juices to drink at home instead.

"I told her she could move on," Chris said, "because I was in for a rough ride."

Instead, Lynn stuck by his side, at the hospital when he required surgery, and during his convalescence, which took weeks. They moved in together so she could nurture him. Today, his cancer is in remission.

Their thoughts had turned frequently to marriage, with Lynn urging Chris to make the proposal a memorable one.

On a business trip to Singapore last October, the couple spotted the Singapore Flyer, the world's largest Ferris wheel, out their hotel window.

Chris was afraid of heights, so Lynn suggested they ride it together, to overcome his fears. Somehow, each time they set out to get there, he found a way to avoid it - by stopping at restaurants for a leisurely hot chocolate or walking the city's streets instead.

But on the last day of the trip, with time running out, they arrived at the Ferris wheel and hopped into the gondola. Lynn was so focused on making Chris comfortable during the ascent that she was floored when he popped the question at the top of the ride, 541 feet off the ground.

It was just as he'd planned - waiting all week, for dramatic effect.

"I wasn't as nervous proposing as I was about getting on that (Singapore) Flyer," he recalled. "I'd identified the Ferris wheel as the spot for the proposal right away."

Chris, 51, and Lynn, 50, wed before 65 family members and friends on Dec. 28 at the Silicon Valley Capital Club in San Jose. There were drinks and toasts and dancing high above Caesar Chavez Plaza, where the city's Christmas festival featured a reminder of Singapore - a small Ferris wheel, with twinkling lights.

The wedding, officiated by the groom's sister, a lawyer, was a celebration of challenges overcome, and of a love that had sprung on Valentine's Day. In keeping with their quiet, constant relationship, the affair was purposely low key.

"We wanted it to just be a big party," said Lynn. "A party where we got married in the middle of it."